In the post-Sputnik sixties, American educational policy-makers developed The New Math, a
revolutionary math curriculum in schools across America. It changed the way a whole generation of
Americans taught (and thought about) mathematics, its applications and its future. Now, in the era of
space shuttles and Mars landings, math curriculum reform is getting a new wave of critical attention.
And people are beginning to ask interesting questions about the politics and history of math and science.
Producer Jon Kalish takes us from NASA laboratories and government think tanks to high school
classrooms and Internet chat forums, to explore some of the social and political properties of new math
and science reform.